


how to disappear

by spacehussy



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Dark Peter, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, sex and murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:35:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22046488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehussy/pseuds/spacehussy
Summary: With the kid worked up to tears and horror, it didn’t take long to convince him to come along, practically as a volunteer. Best to skip town, lay low, Beck insisted, lest he catch the heat and hang for it.That Peter would have died right then and there on the floor of the company vault if he’d put up much more of a fight is a detail lost to time.
Relationships: Quentin Beck/Peter Parker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 85





	how to disappear

**Author's Note:**

> Damn, so I started this in October as a discord prompt for “murder husbands” and it’s been sitting on my hard drive 80% finished till the last couple days, but hey! Better late than never, right? 
> 
> Anyway, this is based off an AU with my best bud (u know who u are) bit of a Bonnie & Clyde vibe. Title of course courtesy of Lana Del Rey.

Peter wanted a drink, he said.

That’s all. One drink before they find a motel to slink back to on the endless stretch of highway they’d been traveling the last few days.

It’d been a long day on the road, and longer still by the time Beck found a bar remote and indiscriminate enough to let them both in, to let Peter have his drink without looking twice at him, much less inquire as to his age. Beck was near exhausted by the time they did, but despite all that, it hadn’t seemed so great an ask at the time, just one drink.

* * *

Most days, Beck tells people what he expects them to believe—that Peter’s his cousin or brother, though there’s not much of a resemblance between them. Vainly, he’d rather not think of himself as old enough to believably be seen as the kid’s father, but the particulars never matter much, as almost no one tends to question it.

He says associate, sometimes. Apprentice, that’s not too bad, and fairly on the mark too, but—

“Oh, this is Quentin,” Peter says abruptly, to the fellow at the bar he’s been talking to for some time, who only just now seems to have noticed Beck at Peter’s side. “He’s my—well, he takes care of me, you understand.”

Beck feels his entire body tense, the hairs at the back of his neck standing on edge. It’s a struggle not to frown, to stare at Peter in confusion and alarm. He’s not sure where Peter picked that language up from, but the man seems to take his meaning without question and nods.

 _You tell people what they see, and they’ll believe it._ He can hear his own words, exactly how he’s whispered it to Peter time and time again. It seems the lesson took.

“He don’t talk much,” the man observes warily.

Beck keeps his eyes on his drink, giving Peter room to spin whatever tale he has in mind.

“He doesn’t like to interrupt me while I make new friends,” Peter says, smooth as anything. Beck does catch his eye briefly, the flash of a warm grin on that innocent face, but it only leaves him feeling cold.

He thought he knew what they were. He has no earthly idea, now.

The conversation doesn’t pertain to him; he understands quickly that his role is to keep drinking, glowering in silence, and so he does just that. If that’s what Peter needs while some man far older than Beck is fawns all over him—well, so be it.

Even if Beck doesn’t understand. Even if it leaves him adrift and confused, his fingers trembling just a little where he holds his glass.

Peter’s a free man, after all.

* * *

Quentin Beck took a chance, not long ago. When this all began, and they were perfect strangers.

As a career confidence man and proud opportunist, Beck had always been particularly skilled at marketing himself to men of business and industry. The smarter, the richer, the better. He sold himself as an expert in a variety of fields, and he was certainly no fool in any of them, but he only needed to keep the act up long enough for a foot in the door. A door his new bosses practically held open for him to rob them blind.

And Peter…smart as a whip, just a kid, a clerk at the Stark factory unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Peter was a witness, a doe-eyed liability, one Beck and his previous partner couldn’t have abided to stay free men. Beck didn’t relish killing anyone, especially not kids, but something had to be done.

He needed to handle it, Bill said. “Handle him, or I will.”

And so he did. Peter had seen too much, that much was clear. Except, strangely, Beck couldn’t help feeling like the kid could be useful instead, with the right motivation.

Motivation, Beck could provide.

He’d kneeled on the floor, looked Peter in the eye, and told him the truth. Beck told him in no uncertain terms that he’d unfortunately stumbled into a robbery, an inside job, and then posed a very simple question: who’s to say Peter wasn’t involved in it from the start? He told the kid that no one really cares about the truth, least of all the police, and there’s no reason Peter wouldn’t take the fall for it once Beck skips town, no matter what defense he could muster.

“Neat and proper,” that’s how he’d put it. “I’m long gone, and you’re locked up, so they can call it a day.”

Peter fought him, though. Argued like hell, even with big fat tears rolling down his cheeks through blood and over bruises, because he didn’t believe that the world could be so cruel, but he couldn’t even convince himself.

Arguing human nature and society with a con man. For Beck, it was practically Christmas. With the kid worked up to tears and horror, it didn’t take long to convince him to come along, practically as a volunteer. Best to skip town, lay low, Beck insisted, lest he catch the heat and hang for it.

That Peter would have died right then and there on the floor of the company vault if he’d put up much more of a fight is a detail lost to time.

But Peter ain’t that kid anymore. The clerk he met at the Stark factory wouldn’t recognize the young man seated in front of Beck now. Sharp-eyed, coy smile, flirting in code with a complete stranger a thousand miles from the town he’d been born and raised in.

Beck remembers it vividly, the moment they crossed state lines.

How Peter had whispered against the window that he’d never been so far from home, that he never thought he’d see much of the world. How, in that moment, Beck absurdly wanted to show him as much as he could.

And there it was—from unlucky witness to willing co-conspirator in months. Funny how life worked.

Hell, more than merely willing. Peter was dangerously smart, even more capable than Beck’s previous partner. At the time, Beck had thought with enough time and influence, the kid might pick up a few tricks here and there, make himself useful winning people over with those big brown eyes and youthful face when they were beyond Beck’s charms.

Instead, Peter took to it with ease. Confidence work was sink or swim, and Peter revealed himself to be a natural diver. The further they got from home, the less Beck recognized the terrified kid that put himself between two thieves and an unlocked vault, shaking knees and all, putting up such a fight that he had to be tied up to be kept out of the way.

Peter’s knees don’t shake anymore. Not for anything. The kid wasn’t his sidekick, not a lackey or lookout—he was a partner, equal shares and all. He’d quickly developed a level of perception that rivaled Beck’s own, an almost effortless ability to read a room, to tell people why they needed him and have them believe it. Peter knew how to stick to a story when it counted and when to improvise, even planned jobs to the minute—sometimes to a level of detail he wouldn’t let Beck in on until the job’s started.

It should bother him, probably. Beck’s never let anyone else call the shots before. A year ago, he’d have balked at the very idea.

Loyalty was for suckers, he’d say, as he’d always said.

Yet here he is anyway, listening to Peter butter up a strange man with a wandering hand, saying nothing, doing nothing, so he doesn’t break the rules of a game he didn’t know they were playing.

He should be angry. No, he should be fucking outraged. At Peter, for doing this to him—at himself, most of all, for letting it get this far, and he should be horrified by what it means.

 _What’s next?_ he thinks dizzily.

There’s gotta be an end to this. Everything ends. He just can’t see it.

“So, where are you staying?” Peter’s voice cuts through his murky, churning thoughts like a knife.

The room blurs.

“Do you want company?”

The man answers, but Beck can’t hear it. He can’t hear anything but Peter’s laugh, can’t see anything but the kid at his side at the bar.

Beck breathes, and breathes and breathes, and closes his eyes.

* * *

He doesn’t see the end, but he sees the beginning, clear as day. The day he killed his previous partner, clubbed him in the back of the head and left his body at Peter’s feet, his blood on Peter’s face, following an instinct he couldn’t name. He told himself he saw an opportunity he could turn to his advantage, same as always. That maybe someone as quick and clever as Peter might be inclined to be grateful after Beck saved his life—to be loyal, gullible, _useful_ in a way that no other partner had been.

But oh, he’s the sucker now. Since that first fucking day he picked the kid over his partner. Since the day he found a crumpled up newspaper in the motel trash bin with Pete’s name in it, listing him as a missing witness but not a wanted criminal.

Peter could have gone home, and he knew it. Back to his cozy life with his family, his job, and his girl, a life where everything was coming together for him, but he didn’t do that. Peter hid the evidence, thought Beck wouldn’t see it, so he could stay on the road with a con man, a _murderer_ , and make a sucker out of him.

Beck’s head spins. They’re outside, cold night air and the smell of gasoline all around him. He barely remembers leaving the bar.

Instead, he remembers other things, like Bill’s body on the floor between them. How he’d taken care to avoid the blood as he kneeled, putting him and Peter face to face. The kid’s eyes were as big as plates and he was terrified, splattered in blood and tears. There were no illusions between them then, not for the kind of man he was, the life he led.

The life he was inviting Peter to join.

He remembers first real job they pulled together, not long after. The kid was a bundle of nerves, knee bouncing and teeth chattering with adrenaline, but he did it. It went to plan with a payday big enough to split, though they shared it instead, and then…

He remembers that night, the first time Peter crawled into bed with him in their shared hotel room. Gone were the nerves from before, the kid was fearless and steady, giving some long winded explanation about how he’s figured out why he’s in no hurry to get back home and marry the girl he’s supposed to, while Beck laid there stunned and listening.

He wanted to be free, the kid said. He’d had a taste of life outside the box he’d been born in and didn’t want to go back. That he wanted things he couldn’t have in that life—not with the wife or the white picket fence. He wanted the open road, the thrill of lawlessness and make believe.

And he wanted someone like Beck in other ways. Someone big and broad and masculine, willing to lay him out and have him, like he’d read about in the ratty magazines Beck always teased him for buying. Like he’d dreamt about, for longer than he knew to admit. 

Peter wanted it to be him that first time, he said, and it was fine if Beck didn’t want him back. They could do it with the lights off, Peter on his belly with his mouth shut tight. Peter promised a dozen times he’d do whatever Beck might want in exchange, if he could have this—even just one time.

But the truth was, he wanted Peter in that same twisted, broken way. He hadn’t planned it, hadn’t foreseen it when he decided to bring Peter along, but there it was right in front of him. He thought of that crumpled up newspaper, the life Peter let himself be taken from. The life Peter was offering to him now, in turn.

It was an opportunity, he thought. One he’d have to be a fool to turn down.

* * *

They found that Peter did quite like it on his belly, after all. He asked for it often, but the lights stayed on.

* * *

Turns out, it didn’t matter what he’d planned—Peter made a fool out of him anyway.

He must have, because Beck’s the one following his partner in crime—his lover—to a dark, grubby motel room with a strange man Peter’s decided he wants to play with instead. He’d thought… Well, it didn’t matter what he thought, because he was wrong.

It’s fine, Beck tells himself. Whatever existed between them, it wasn’t real. He doesn’t own the kid, that’s the whole point. Peter’s not _his_. Peter’s free to do as he likes, and clearly intends to.

And Beck…he’ll just have to deal with it. He can. He’s no delicate flower—the shit he’s seen, the things he’s done… What’s this, in the face of all that?

“He likes to watch,” Peter’s saying, as the three of them walk, following the dimly lit road to the motel. No cars pass them, not one. “It’ll just be you and me, but he’s gotta make sure no one gets too rough.”

Beck feels dizzy. He feels sick. But he doesn’t speak; he doesn’t know what he’d say anyway. Not until the walk is over, and Peter’s new friend is unlocking his motel room door and walking inside.

Beck lingers, not quite frozen, swaying on his feet until Peter notices.

“C’mon, show’s waiting,” he says, smiling bright as anything.

He’s beautiful. He’s so fucking beautiful, and Beck’s guts feel twisted into knots inside, heavier than lead.

“I don’t think I can do this, baby,” Beck admits in a hoarse, desperate whisper. He’s never dared call Peter that where anyone else could hear them. “I don’t think I can watch.”

He thought he could handle it, that he could tolerate it for Peter, if the kid wants it so bad, but he can’t. He can’t go in that room.

Peter gives him a strange look. Inside the motel room, the bedside radio clicks on.

“What?” Peter says, following as Beck takes a step back into the darkness outside the threshold.

“It’s fine, you go on. I’ll sleep in the car.”

Peter starts. His eyes dart from Beck to their host, giving him a small wave before he turns back with his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Quentin—what in the hell are you even talking about?” he hisses. His voice is so low under the radio static that Beck has to strain to catch it. “I can’t do this by myself. What if he puts up a fight?”

A fight?

As understanding hits him, Beck at first says nothing, even as Peter’s expression grows pinched and somehow even more confused.

“What do you think we’re doing here?” Peter asks him, slowly.

Luckily, Beck doesn’t have to answer, doesn’t have to come up with some explanation for his thoughts. The moment the words leave Peter’s mouth, he can tell the kid’s figured it out.

“You’re a right fool, Quentin Beck,” Peter exhales in disbelief, but there’s a fondness in the the smile at the corners of his mouth.

Beck nearly sways with the sudden rush of relief, powerful enough to ignore the mortified heat rising in his face, to forget the frenzy of thoughts just moments ago tearing him to tatters.

“This is a job,” Peter says. “I would have said just about anything to get him alone with us. So come on, get in here. I need you.”

He turns then, to go inside, and Beck follows without another word.

* * *

_I need you._

Peter’s words. Words he’s heard a hundred times in a hundred ways. Usually in the room of a dimly lit motel, like this. Whispered, like this. Urgent. Impossible to ignore.

Beck hears it with every impact. Peter’s voice hammers inside his head with every strike of his hand to the man’s face, chest, when his boot connects with his back and side.

Funny thing, really, Beck thinks, even as he keeps kicking. This isn’t his usual game. He generally prefers talking people out of their money, not beating it out of them. He ain’t opposed to a politely armed shakedown, if that’s what it comes to, but he’s never considered himself a particularly violent man.

Nonetheless, violence comes easily to him that night. He feels a fresh rush of adrenaline and anger every time he pictures the man’s hand on Peter’s knee. And he can’t stop himself from imagining everything the pile of bones and blood at his feet intended to do once the door slammed shut. With Beck right there with them, watching.

The very thought twists him still, with horror and revulsion and anger, and he kicks the man again.

He may not have been able to stomach the thought of watching what was meant to happen in this room, but Beck finds that Peter has no such trouble. His gaze darts to Peter time and again, always to find the kid watching him intently from the other side of the room, his face unreadable, his big brown eyes narrowed and focused.

“I think you can stop,” Peter says, eventually. His voice is soft, distant. “He’s not moving anymore.”

Beck stops. The anger that had been fueling him seems to dry up all at once, leaving him somewhat dazed, staring blankly at the bloody pulp of a man at his feet.

“Right,” Beck hears himself say. His throat feels dry, like he’s been screaming, but he knows he’s barely made a sound.

And his head, so loud before, finally quiets after a time. Enough to hear Peter rifling through the man’s belongings. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the kid pocket a decent watch and cash. It seemed a lot for traveling money, hopefully enough to justify what they’d done to get it.

He’s never been the type to run a job without knowing the payout before. Peter must have known—must have seen something, to have brought them here.

Something Beck missed, keeps missing.

Everything comes in flashes after that. The walk back to their car is a blur. Peter leads the way, and Beck follows without needing to be told.

They leave the motel and find another, a town away. Peter drives, this time.

Collapsed in the passenger seat, Beck watches him in silence. Hours ago he was exhausted, now he doesn’t know what he is. His head feels empty, like it’s been carved out, but his body feels as though it’s still in motion—shivering and shaking, with adrenaline and blood roaring through his veins.

Beside him, Peter keeps his eyes on the road, and his steady hands on the wheel.

* * *

They barely speak the entire drive. By the time Peter’s peeling Beck’s bloody clothes off his body in a motel room much like the one they’ve run from, the sun’s nearly up.

Despite the long night, the kid seems alert. Wired, almost, as he makes Beck sit at the edge of the bed, then attentively cleans his face and hands with a warm washcloth.

“Where’d you pick that stuff up from?” Beck asks numbly, the first words he’s spoken in hours.

Peter shrugs. “Around,” he says. When he looks up from Beck’s raw knuckles, he must see something he doesn’t like, because he frowns. “Why do you look so sour? You’re the one that taught me to own the room, to tell people what they believe, didn’t you?”

He did. He did say that. He says nothing, now.

Peter likes the silence even less. He gets irritated, his jaw tensed and his brow furrowed, though he keeps washing up until the only blood left on Beck’s skin is his own, welling up in pinpricks along his knuckles.

Peter tends to that, too.

“I saw how he was looking at me,” Peter continues, after a while. He doesn’t look up from where he’s wrapping what’s left of their clean bandages around Beck’s hands. His hands are small, almost delicate. Beck loves to watch them at work—fixing things, breaking things. Grease stained, blood stained, it was all the same.

It’s a sight that calms him even then, despite the words spilling out between them.

“It wasn’t the first time,” Peter says. “The places we end up—fellas say things to me, sometimes. Proposition me, ask if they gotta talk to you first. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

Beck is too, for a moment. But then, he’s coming to understand that his perception isn’t what it used to be. It’s been obscured, distracted even, so much that he missed the other sharks starting to circle around them.

Staring down at his hands, Beck wonders what else he missed.

“He was traveling alone,” Peter’s saying. “He told me he’d just been paid and was feeling generous. I figured I may as well take advantage of the opportunity, just like you taught me. So what’s the big deal?”

Beck snorts a humorless laugh, gesturing between them with his raw, bandaged knuckles. He doesn’t mention the fact that the man they’re discussing is dead on the floor a town over, but the memory of that sight lights him up inside, burning away his numb exhaustion.

“What the hell do you think?” he says, though the words are barely more than a hiss. He’s never raised a hand against the kid, never even raised his voice, but he’s angry now, and it shows.

Peter doesn’t so much as flinch.

“I didn’t think you’d kill him,” he sighs. Like he’s explaining something Beck should already know. “Rough him up a little, sure. I was thinking he’d be too embarrassed to call the cops, or tell anyone why he let us in the room.”

When he puts it like that, it almost sounds sensible. For just a moment, Beck could almost think the kid really believes it. He even wants to.

By now, much of the night feels like a blur. He knows what happened, he knows what he did, but the details are fuzzy enough on the edges to take Peter at his word and let himself believe it to be true.

But Peter’s smart, too smart, and Beck remembers one thing with sharp, awful clarity: Peter used their names. He’s never done that on a job before. Aliases only; they’ve got more than a few, and sliding between them is a skill they share with ease.

Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe he always wanted it to go this way.

“Pete…” Beck murmurs, sounding hoarse with exhaustion, aching through and through. Not _baby_ , not _sweetheart_ , none of the soft little things he usually whispers when they’re alone, and Peter clearly hears the lack. Hurt flashes in his eyes for one awful second and Beck can’t even recall what he meant to say.

The uncomfortable truth is that he doesn’t really care that he killed a man. Not one so meaningless, with no motive most folks would care to understand. He doesn’t care about any of that, and Peter knows it.

Kneeling at the side of the bed, Peter waits for him to speak. When nothing comes, he leans forward, cautious and slow, as if Beck might startle away.

He doesn’t, of course. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t so much as twitch when Peter’s hands slide over his battered knuckles, up to his wrists and forearms. It should hurt, because his entire body is starting to hurt, but the kid’s touch is so gentle it barely registers.

“Those things you said, outside the motel,” Peter murmurs to him. “You really thought I wanted…”

And just like before, Beck doesn’t have to say a thing. There’s almost no point in lying to Peter anymore even if he could speak; the kid knows him too well, sees right through him.

Beck only shuts his eyes, tensed with shame at the thought, braced for a laugh that never comes. He opens his eyes again to find Peter watching him with a curious smile, and Beck takes terrible comfort in it, despite how sharp that smile seems.

“You are the smartest man I know, Quentin. What’s gotten your head so twisted you couldn’t see what was happening right in front of your eyes?” Peter asks him fondly.

Like he doesn’t know the answer.

Beck feels the tension from moments ago evaporate, leaving something else entirely. Something warm, soft—a tenderness he never would have considered himself capable of appreciating not so long ago. Or that a man like him could even want such a thing.

But Peter gazes up at him, sweet and steady and smiling, and Beck forgets the pain in his hands. The anger that had been brewing in him like a storm.

“You big sucker,” Peter teases, edging ever closer, until Beck can feel the warmth of him everywhere. “Don’t you know I’m yours?”

Beck doesn’t answer. Not out loud, not when _yes_ and _no_ feel equally untrue. His aching hands curl around Peter’s face instead, hauling him that last inch closer to taste him, to chase his words and know their truth.

His grip feels less gentle than he usually is, but Peter only moans for it in surprise and pleasure, opening for him eagerly. The kid’s always been tougher than he looks, he knows, as strange as it feels to use his strength in such a way.

The thought doesn’t bother him for long. Not when Peter’s the one guiding his hands, showing him in a decisive grip what he wants, where he wants it.

Despite what he knows himself to be capable of, Beck’s never had a taste for anything rough in bed. He didn’t think Peter did either. But that night—that morning—it becomes clear Peter wants something different, something new. He wants Beck’s mouth and his teeth, biting and sucking, and he isn’t satisfied until his pretty little body is covered in tender bruises.

He wants Beck’s hands on him; on his thin wrists, even the column of his throat, pressing down hard and inescapable, until the only sound he can make is a whimper with each rough thrust.

Peter wants all these things, with a hunger Beck didn’t know he possessed. And because he’s a sucker, he’s a fool, he gives the kid all he’s got.

_Don’t you know I’m yours?_

Beneath him, Peter takes it and takes it, and it’s only when he’s sweat soaked and near sobbing does he finally let Beck bring him to release, biting down hard on his lower lip to muffle himself. Beck follows him not long after, taking that lip between his own teeth to feel the heat of it, where Peter left it swollen and raw, the blood just under the surface yet not drawn.

When he comes, it nearly hurts, the sharp rush of relief and pleasure somehow more heady than he was prepared for. More than it usually is, or has ever been.

An experience he senses they shared, looking down at the state of Peter beneath him, and the bright, satisfied look in his eyes. As though something had at last come into focus, something only he could see.

* * *

For a little while longer, they lay awake, entangled.

Outside the motel, the sky is bright. Inside, the curtains are heavy, leaving them in a dark but golden space, hidden away, breathing the same air, sharing the same heat.

Beck never wants to leave. He never wants to sleep.

Across his chest, he feels Peter stir. The kid’s been half dozing, humming as Beck idly strokes his back, though he finally seems to have gathered enough energy to speak, for he lifts his head just a little.

“There are a lot of fellas who travel alone, you know,” Peter says. His throat is bruised, his voice is a rasp, and whatever Beck was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. “I bet if we get a few drinks in them, we won’t even need to be that rough. We just have to be more careful than we were last night.”

“Oh.” Beck swallows. “Yeah.”

“This is just the beginning, you know. For us. We get enough together, no one can stop us. No one could even find us.”

Beck says nothing to that. Where he’d momentarily stopped stroking Peter’s back, he quietly resumes, and Peter lets his head slump back down onto his chest.

“You set me free, Quentin,” Peter whispers, muffled against his skin. “I’ll always be grateful for that.”

Eventually, the weight against him relaxes, and Peter falls asleep. In silence, Beck watches, feels him breathe and shift in his sleep, looking every inch the sweet kid that came along with him all those months ago. He’s not, and Beck knows that with a certainty he could only have guessed at before.

Despite it all, the long night and all its awful revelations, as he watches the kid sleep, Beck feels strangely at ease. He knows he shouldn’t—because Peter’s right, of course. He did set something free, and he doesn’t know what.

But he knows it’s his.


End file.
